Greece’s AEGEAN Airlines acquires 13% stake in Volotea
Spain’s Volotea announced on Tuesday that it will increase its capital by up to 100 million euros and will add AEGEAN Airlines, Greece’s largest airline, to its shareholding, thus strengthening its financial position and consolidating its strategic agreement with the Greek company.
The Spanish airline has strengthened its capital with an initial injection of EUR 50 million, of which AEGEAN is providing EUR 25 million. The remaining €25 million will be provided by the company’s existing investors, including the management team led by CEO and founder Carlos Muñoz. A further tranche of up to EUR 50 million is expected to be executed before the first quarter of 2025, with the same distribution of contributions.
AEGEAN would end up with a 13% stake in Volotea at the end of the first tranche and could reach 21% at the end of the second tranche.
→ Volotea to open its 10th base in France
AEGEAN’s entry into Volotea’s shareholding strengthens the financial structure of the Barcelona-based company, and is accompanied by a strategic commercial agreement. This enhances the Spanish airline’s strategic and financial position on the continent, to cope with upcoming changes in the industry, such as the recent approval of the merger between ITA Airways and Lufthansa by the European Commission and the evolving competitive landscape in the European market. It will also enable Volotea to further strengthen its presence in Greece by ensuring a focused approach to growth and service improvement within the country.
The two airlines have had a bilateral agreement since 2021 to market codeshare flights on existing international routes in Italy, France, Spain and Greece, allowing each carrier’s customers to benefit from an expanded network of destinations. In this regard, the strategic alliance signed today in Athens also involves the expansion of their commercial collaboration, as well as the optimization and provision of coordinated and enhanced services, ensuring more connectivity options for passengers.
Some of the new commercial benefits include an increase in seat capacity and routes within Greece, especially to the Greek islands, as well as new international routes from France and Italy. Together, the two airlines will offer a total of 140 routes. In addition, Athens and Thessaloniki will strengthen their position as international hubs, while connectivity to the Greek islands will be significantly improved, particularly on connections to Corfu, Heraklion and Rhodes.
“Today is a very important day for Volotea, as this capital injection marks a significant financial milestone, with our shareholders and the agreement incorporating AEGEAN as a strategic and financial partner. We have known AEGEAN and its team, led by its chairman, Eftichios Vassilakis, as partners for several years, and we share a similar philosophy, values and vision towards the consolidation of European airlines.” We are very pleased with this new step in our successful collaboration together,” said Carlos Muñoz, CEO and founder of Volotea.
“AEGEAN and Volotea may have different operating models and products, but in many ways they are complementary and share a customer-centric philosophy. We invested in Volotea because we believe in the strategy and potential of this company’s scalable model, but also to expand our distribution capacity in three highly significant source markets (France, Italy and Spain) and join forces to offer greater direct connectivity from these markets to Greece’s regional airports,” commented Eftichios Vassilakis, President of AEGEAN.
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